A Life of Hiding for a Tobacco Critic Bound to Silence

By PHILIP J. HILTS,

Published: August 8, 1994

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5—
In the last few months, as thousands of pages of documents from the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation have surfaced in Congress and in news reports, one man's name has repeatedly been cited as the source.

But not a word has been heard from that man, Merrell Williams, a 53-year-old former paralegal. A Louisville, Ky., court has enjoined him from discussing the documents with anyone, including his own lawyers. So he is silent, even though he has been publicly accused by Brown & Williamson of stealing its papers.

In several interviews in the past few weeks, Mr. Williams has discussed his role in the case, although not the documents themselves. He is, by his own description, a nervous and sometimes contentious man, with an erratic employment history.

Mr. Williams has acknowledged that he was shocked by what he saw in the Brown & Williamson documents when he was working as a paralegal for the tobacco company's law firm in 1989. According to a letter written by his lawyer, he copied the documents and removed the copies, but he says he returned them later. The law firm and Brown & Williamson are suing Mr. Williams, claiming that he violated a confidentiality agreement. Judge Is Adamant

Judge Thomas B. Wine of Jefferson County Circuit Court, who imposed the gag order, acknowledged in court that even if Mr. Williams's actions constituted a crime, it would be a misdemeanor for which the statute of limitations would have long expired. But Judge Wine said he was concerned about the confidentiality of the relationship between a law firm and its client.

"I don't understand it," Mr. Williams said in an interview. "How can I defend myself if I can't talk to my lawyer?"

Mr. Williams's lawyers, J. Fox DeMoisey of Louisville and Alan Morrison of Washington, are trying to appeal the judge's order -- without discussing it with their client.

This odd legal situation is only one of many peculiarities of the case of Mr. Williams, a father of two, former teacher of drama, former paralegal and current tobacco industry pariah.

Mr. Williams says he fears for his safety in his home in Kentucky. For the past few months, he has been living in a maze of apartment buildings in a small town strung along an old Mississippi highway, long since bypassed by the Interstate.

About six weeks into his stay there, the apartment's refrigerator had little food but plenty of beer and wine. Boxes were not yet unpacked, and lamps not set up. He sat in the dark as light weakly shined from the kitchen, and gave this account of his life:

He was born in Louisiana into a conservative family. His father, who ran a small furniture store in West Texas, once switched churches when the minister used the word "belly." He has one sibling, a sister who is an artist. His father smoked Lucky Strikes and died of a heart attack in his early 50's. Mr. Williams, who smoked Kools, a Brown & Williamson brand, off and on for many years, suffered a severe attack of angina pectoris at about the same age.

Mr. Williams went to Baylor University and got a Ph.D. in drama from the University of Denver. He wrote plays, and some of his work was produced in Off Off Broadway theaters in New York; he also sold some television scripts. But life in New York made him nervous, so he took a job teaching drama at Jackson State University in Florida, where he married and became the father of two children. When, at age 40, he was replaced by a younger teacher, who he says had lesser credentials, he entered a complaint against Jackson State for age discrimination.

In 1981 he moved to Louisville from Florida. Despite his 11 years of experience at Jackson State, he was unable to find a teaching job. Instead, he says, he took paralegal courses at Sullivan Junior College of Business in Louisville. He then sued the college, saying it had misrepresented its record of getting jobs for its graduates. The college countersued, and the case was eventually dismissed. Turning to Law

Around that time, his wife sued for divorce after 10 years of marriage. "What I had, when it was over," Mr. Williams said, "was a bicycle. I took jobs as a car salesman, a waiter, and I cut roses at one job."

Finally, in January 1988, he was hired by the law firm of Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs. At the time, the Wyatt firm was working for Brown & Williamson, describing, classifying and filing the company's internal papers. Other tobacco companies were carrying out similar projects because of lawsuits by former smokers.

Judge Wine's order prohibits Mr. Williams from talking about his work. But he said, "I can tell you that I read documents," he said, and that he had described himself in Judge Wine's court "as being horrified by what I had read."

He said he had found himself looking at documents that might be considered evidence of criminal acts. In September 1989, he drove into the mountains of Kentucky in a highly emotional state. After an episode of religious insight that he describes as "Gandhiism," he decided to act. A Fresh Start

First, he quit smoking. And he decided to do something about tobacco and public health.

Because of Judge Wine's order, he cannot relate what he did over the next few years. He can say that in 1993, after his attack of angina, he underwent quintuple bypass surgery. Because he is thin and has low cholesterol levels and low blood pressure,he decided smoking had caused his heart disease, and that of his father.

In July 1993, Mr. Williams appeared in the law office of Mr. DeMoisey in Louisville. His life was being shortened by smoking, he said, and he wanted to sue.

He had brought with him a file box full of documents, which he described as papers taken from the files of Brown & Williamson. He told Mr. DeMoisey of the "horrors" of what he had found in those documents about the company's knowledge of health hazards from smoking.

Mr. DeMoisey promptly wrote to the Wyatt firm. In that letter, he said Mr. Williams intended to sue Brown & Williamson unless a settlement was reached. He also said that he had advised Mr. Williams to send back to the law firm the copies of documents he had and that he had been assured that this had been done.

The Wyatt law firm and Brown & Williamson then sued Mr. Williams, saying he had stolen documents and violated a confidentiality agreement.

Nine months later, in April, Brown & Williamson documents began to appear in the offices of members of Congress and newspapers. How the documents may have gotten from Mr. Williams's file box, which was sent back to Brown & Williamson, to those offices is not clear. Mr. Williams is unable to comment, but some have suggested that he may have sent the papers to intermediaries, who then passed them to Congress and reporters.

The Food and Drug Administration, as it tries to determine if cigarettes should be regulated, has requested many of the documents from the company. The documents were also important in two hearings held by Representative Henry A. Waxman's Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health and the environment, and more hearings may be held later this year.

After Mr. Williams watched the televised hearings, he said he was feeling "a bit of euphoria. I'm very pleased that Waxman is taking hold of this issue. Someone is actually getting to some truth after 40 years of deception."